


Unbound to Any Cage

by Lunarium



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, Vampires, pyrokinesis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-01
Updated: 2015-11-01
Packaged: 2018-04-29 10:04:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5123531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lunarium/pseuds/Lunarium
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>By the will of Rôg, Eöl and Aredhel survive their deaths, but both have become changed, and Aredhel seeks resolution.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unbound to Any Cage

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Spook Me 2015. Used the prompt “vampire.” The symbol that Rôg and Eöl make on Aredhel’s forehead is the ankh. This fic also uses my headcanon that Rôg has an essence of a demonic soul inside him.

The sun had long set and risen again, and still he remained beside the cold body of his late wife. His eyes had gone blood-red from crying, despite being dead himself. Meleth stood by the doorway close to Idril, watching and protecting him from the intruders and fighting off the shudders that swept through her as a chilly breeze. 

The previous morning had been the man’s execution. She had walked around the base of the cliff to collect his body for a more proper burial, for he was her childhood friend, only to find her own husband Rôg lapping away at the blood of the fallen Eöl’s jaw and neck. His skull had cracked open from the impact, his eyes wide open from a mix of pain and shock, and there was their own friend Rôg, kissing the brow of Eöl and tasting his blood. 

Screaming, Meleth had threatened to report him to the king, though to Idril her first thoughts turned, to run into her arms for safety, but Rôg simply stared and smirked in silence before putting a finger against his lips. 

“Watch, beloved,” he had said. 

And she had watched, as much as her heart had pounded with horror and disgust at Rôg’s behavior, as the elf proceeded with a ritual, dark and forbidden, originating from his own demonic roots flowing in his veins. The skull healed, and a light shone behind the glassy eyes of Eöl, though they were dimmed. The bones in his arms and legs fused back into shape, and he blinked back at them, silent and confused and afraid; and laughing, Rôg kissed him on the lips. 

Eöl made straightaway for Aredhel’s room though his gait was confused and uncoordinated. Upon sight of her cold body he bawled out a cry and hadn’t stopped since. He seemed incapable of any speech save for the tongue of his native Kinn-lai people. The words gnarled at all Noldor who heard him, for they regarded the brown-skinned elf with abhorrence as they hated all the Moriquendi. To Meleth also did their opinion change; she heard the mutterings of her being a witch, of her dark skin, similar to that of an orc one had commented, being a sign of her own wickedness. They believed she had risen Eöl from the dead. 

Hearing them, Idril had ushered her to the safety of Aredhel’s room and guarded both her and Eöl since. The only other Noldo to stay with them was Egalmoth, for he alone among the lords of Gondolin had stood by Eöl and disagreed upon the execution of the Avar. 

Rôg flitted in and out of the room, unaffected by neither the Noldor’s growing inhospitality nor the grief pouring out of Eöl. By the morning he returned and remained, watching by the archway as Eöl lay by Aredhel’s side, cradling her in his arms. 

“She’s not going to grow any warmer,” Rôg broke the silence. Meleth felt the heat rise to her face, nearly sending her off her chair to strike him across his face. Ever since he escaped Angband he had never been the same. Eöl had been with him, but he had not changed, not like this. 

Eöl’s simply turned towards Rôg and regarded him silently. 

“I gave you life,” Rôg said, strolling inside the room. “If you feel bitter about her death, if you blame yourself, you can turn this around, give her life again.” 

This time Meleth did stand up. 

“Eöl, do not do this!” she ordered. “You do not know what Rôg would have you do and what consequences this will bring! Whatever it is, this is not what our Maker has intended!”

“But I cannot bear to think her spirit caged in the Halls,” Eöl said. “I thought my lands gave her freedom; I had no idea, but I never meant ill. I never meant to kill her.” 

“What do you want, Eöl?” Rôg crooned, crouching close to him. 

“I want to see her live unbound to any cage,” he replied. He met Rôg’s eyes, pleading as he leaned over Aredhel’s cold frame. “If you know a means, show me.”

Meleth flopped back down beside Idril, defeated. Egalmoth shifted his weight uncomfortably as Rôg kissed Eöl again before taking one of Eöl’s hands and prickling a sharp tooth against the pad of his index finger. He guided Eöl’s hand up to Aredhel’s brow and drew with his blood a long vertical line with a short horizontal line above it, crowned by a loop. Meleth refused to witness the rest of it, but she could hear their chants in unison, and turned only when Idril gasped suddenly. 

Meleth whipped back around in time to see Aredhel stir, but it was brief. Eöl kissed down her neck before biting into her neck and drinking what remained of her. 

“There is so little left,” Rôg laughed after Eöl made a disgusted face, shuddering. “You’ve waited so long.” 

Determined, Eöl repeated the process when suddenly a hand reached out and clawed into his shoulder. Her eyes fluttered open wide, Aredhel studied him, silent but fully alert, her mouth slightly parted to reveal two tiny sharp fangs. 

“She requires your blood now,” Rôg informed. “She’s nearly without any, and if you give her none she will suffer.” 

“No, I won’t have her suffer,” Eöl said. He tore open the collar of his shirt, offering his neck to his wife who clutched on instantly, fangs dug into Eöl’s skin as blood filled Aredhel back into life, the symbol on her brow gleaming. 

Meleth felt her own blood drain from her as she gazed towards her husband, realizing what he had turned them into for they had once fought these very fiends before Doriath became their home and sanctuary. 

When at last Aredhel had drunk her fill, she shoved Eöl aside and rose, silent, her eyes brighter than Meleth had ever remembered of the White Lady of the Noldor. Eöl scrambled to the foot of the bed and got on his knees, weeping in gratitude and guilt both, begging for her forgiveness. 

“I never meant-”

Aredhel did not answer. She said nothing to anyone in the room, but walked right out, and everyone followed right behind her. 

“Will the sun affect her?” Meleth asked, but was answered by Aredhel herself who stepped right into the sunlight. Casting out her arms and grinning up, her laughter rang out, reverberating in everyone who heard her, and Meleth, Idril, and Egalmoth took a step back. The bloodied symbol on her forehead shone in the sun. 

Then Aredhel strode towards the throne room.

*

The first to lay eyes on her at the halls was King Turgon, who froze the moment he saw her, disbelieved, before he put on a look to pleasant surprise.

“Sister, you are alive!” he said. “It must be the work of the Valar to bring you back to me!” 

“Bring me back to you?” Aredhel said coldly. “You speak as if you own me like a slave or a trinket.” 

Turgon blanched. 

“Did I not order you to not harm my husband?” 

Turgon’s laugh was light but uneasy. “But, sister, his javelin had a poisoned tip, an evil thing in my eyes.” 

“He keeps it poisoned to kill the orcs who try to kill him whenever he leaves his realms. My death was merely an accident in our quarrel over our son. Did you think you had a right to step into _my_ own battles and fight them for me? Did I ask for your aid? You killed a man I loved and fought, and all because of the threat of keeping us both in this cage! You were the cause of our deaths!”

A flash of purest anger crossed her face, and suddenly Turgon’s body was set aflame. Screams ripped through the hall as the Gondolin king burned to his death before their eyes, gone before anyone could put out the fire. His crown, unscathed, fell to the ground, and Aredhel casually picked it, and glanced at it briefly before giving it to Idril.

“By right I would be the new leader of Gondolin,” Aredhel said. “But I have no desire to chain myself here. Take it and rule Gondolin. Salve the wound between the Calaquendi and Moriquendi.” Egalmoth and Meleth’s eyes met one another and shared a sad smile. “You may find you will need it at a later time.” 

Idril accepted the crown with shaking hands, not daring to glance towards her father’s ashes. 

Aredhel continued on. 

Maeglin was found creeping around a corridor near a library, espying a few of the women, looking for one in particular, when suddenly seeing his mother, he gave a start and straightened up. 

“Mother! I wept so much for you after your passing!” he began. “I never thought — how —”

“Actions speaker louder than words,” Aredhel spat, glaring at her son. “Your father was next to me for all night, and where were you? Seeking out a bride already?” 

“I wouldn’t — How is _he_ alive?” 

“By will of a merciful man,” Aredhel said, low and deadly. “Unlike yourself, for you have used me as a vehicle for your own selfish ends.”

“Mother, I would never…my heart ached so much when you passed —” 

“Save your breath! Your face is drier than anyone’s here!” And as with Turgon, with one look from her eyes, the flames engulfed Maeglin to his death. 

She took a few steps, studying the place about her. “This will never become my home again,” Aredhel finally declared, “though I may come back, just to see the ones remaining who I love.” 

She turned around to address the ones who followed her from her room. Her eyes fell on Eöl next, whose shocked eyes were still on the ashes of his late son. Realizing that Aredhel was looking at him, he stepped to the front and got on his knees again. 

“Get up,” she said in a voice both bored and exhausted, and Eöl obeyed. 

“I never meant to harm you,” Eöl began. 

“I know.” 

“What will you do now?” 

“What will _you_ do?” 

Eöl considered the question in earnest. “I will return to Nan Elmoth and continue my work. I am still the lord there. I still have a people I rule, and they await for my return. I will have changed again, and I do not know to what full extent. But no matter _what_ I am now, I will not change _who_ I am. I will keep Nan Elmoth and my people safe first and foremost, and I will tend to my crafts and studies.” 

“You can use your powers to ignite fire. It should make your smith work a little easier. Put it to good use if I lure the sons of Fëanor to you,” Aredhel said with the faintness hint of her former self. “I still have that matter to settle with Celegorm.” Eöl returned her smile. 

“And what about you?” he asked. 

“I am still angry with you,” Aredhel said. “And angry at my brother Turgon so much that I have decided I’ve seen enough of Gondolin for the time being. I will visit my father and brother, and my aunt Lalwen as well. I will travel every inch of this world and love it as passionately as I have once loved Nan Elmoth, and leave when I have grown sick of it.” 

Eöl nodded. “May there be plenty land to explore so your heart never sickens, my wife.” 

Aredhel smiled. “I will visit you too, whenever the right time has come, and here too when I miss Meleth and Idril and the rest.” 

The others bowed to Aredhel, though they regarded her sadly. 

But Aredhel bowed to them. “I do not know what Rôg did to us both,” she said as she rubbed away at the mark on her forehead, “but perhaps it is for the best, in the end. Our son we’ve lost because we have failed in raising him cooperatively, as we have lost the passion of our first night of our meeting. But we have also gained. You return to work undisturbed and well-equipped against your enemies, and I shall live forevermore unbound to any cage.”

**Author's Note:**

> The issue that Aredhel seeks to resolve with Celegorm is explored in "[Arátellë](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4542258)." This fic is a sort of AU divergent of my main 'verse. :)


End file.
